The present invention relates to a container for the conditioning of medium or low activity radioactive waste. For facilitating the storage thereof, low and medium activity radioactive waste is normally conditioned or stored in containers in the form of drums sealed by covers. After being placed in the drums, the waste is coated with a bituminous mixture injected through an opening made in the cover.
In the case of low activity waste, the containers are normally locked by bolting the cover onto the drum. In the case of medium activity waste, it is not possible for personnel to bolt down the cover, so that the container is locked through the setting of the bituminous mixture.
In both cases, the containers takes a long time to lock making the presently used container locking means completely unsuitable for the automation of the operations of conditioning medium and low activity radioactive waste.
However, as a result of the increase in the number of nuclear power stations throughout the world, there has been a considerable rise in the amount of waste. It is therefore highly desirable to have an easily remotely manipulatable and lockable container, so that it is possible to achieve a sufficiently high speed to allow the conditioning and coating of the waste by an automatic line.